GAMA THE WORLD CHAMPION

GAMA THE WORLD CHAMPION:
WRESTLING AND PHYSICAL
CULTURE IN COLONIAL INDIA
Joseph S. Alter, Ph.D.
The University of Pittsburgh

Around the turn of the century in colonial India there was movement was ever a main-stream socio-political phenomenon, but
a loosely formulated, but nevertheless dramatic, concern among what does seem clear from the scant evidence available is that a
India’s growing middle-class with the
articulation of an ideal of indigenous
masculinity, and with the embodiment
of that ideal in the population at large.
In many parts of the country groups
of men established local akharas (gymnasiums)
for the propagation of indigenous
martial arts, physical fitness programs,
and wrestling in particular. In
this paper I will examine some of the
features of this “modern tradition”
through a study of Gama, the early
twentieth-century world champion, and
a number of his nationally ranked compatriots.
Although the art of wrestling
and physical culture in Indian civilization
dates back thousands of years, the
history of most contemporary gymnasiums
dates back less than a century.
Even so, these gymnasiums were built
on a so-called ancient traditional model.
The key elements of this model are still
found in many contemporary gymnasiums:
a large square or rectangular
raised earthen wrestling pit, a flat hardpacked
floor for doing exercises, a collection
of mugdals (Indian clubs), gadas
(maces) and nals (stone weights) for
weight lifting, and often a rope for
climbing and a mallakhamb (wrestler’s
pillar) for strength and technique training.
The revival of interest in indigenous
physical culture late in the nineteenth
century focused on wrestling
in the earth (loose dirt) and doing distinctly
Indian exercises at these gymnasiums.
Measured in terms of demographic
statistics, it is doubtful that this
predominantly urban physical fitness
significant number of middle-class
men saw physical culture as a means
by which to redefine Indian national
character in the face of British
imperialism and in light of the perceived
hegemony of western ideas
about fitness, health and strength.

Parallel to the largely urban middle-
class movement was the development
of a much more pervasive tradition
of wrestling and physical culture
among the semi-urban lowerclass
in general, and the rural North Indian
peasantry in particular. Most certainly
before, but also, significantly,
after the middle-class revival, the
majority of Indian wrestlers had been
peasants or first generation working
class migrants to urban areas who
started training in their village or
neighborhood gymnasium. Although
a majority of these wrestlers trained
on their own and competed in small
regional tournaments, a small percentage
of highly skilled, talented
young men were successful enough
to earn the patronage of rajahs and
maharajahs. As patrons, the rajahs
and maharajahs provided their lowerclass,
often relatively poor, court
wrestlers with training facilities, housing,
and, above all, high-fat, energy
producing food. In turn, wrestlers
competed for their patrons against
other court wrestlers in large, well
organized tournaments. Champion
TAKEN THE DAY AFTER HIS VICTORIOUS RE-MATCH WITH THE POL- wrestlers quickly became famous
ISH CHAMPION ZYBYSKO IN 1928, THIS PHOTO SHOWS THE POW- in the context of inter-princely state
ERFUL GAMA HOLDING THE GOLDEN CLUB PRESENTED TO HIM BY competition and gained national
THE MAHARAJAH OF PATIALA. recognition when more lavish tour-
–TODD-MCLEAN COLLECTION naments were staged.

Although the tradition of royal patronage for wrestling dates
back to antiquity, there seems to have been a significant increase in
the scale of royal wrestling in the early part of this century. Certainly
in rhetoric and contemporary memory at least, royal patrons
from Indor, Kolhapur, Rampurl Patiyala and elsewhere are lionized
for the personal care they gave to training, feeding, and looking
after as many as two hundred wrestlers in their royal gymnasiums.
Whatever its empirical dimensions were in fact, the increase in royal
patronage corresponds directly to the middle-class revival of interest
in physical culture. Most likely it was the elite Indian princes who
played a key role in the convergence of middle-class interest in physical
culture on the one hand, and the strategic creation of powerful,
lower-class heroes on the other. In other words, the Indian princes
provided the ways and means by which it was possible for upper and
middle-class urban Indian men to see themselves — or an image of
what they wanted themselves to be — in the hard, down-to-earth
training of young peasants.
The dramatic life of Gama Baksh [Ed note: According to
David P. Willoughby’s The Super Athletes, Gama was born Gulam
Mohammed], a lower-class, illiterate Muslim from northwest India,
who was a champion wrestler from 1910 until his retirement in the
early 1940s provides a dramatic case in point. Gama’s national and
international success, however, only makes sense within the context
of a particular, historically situated tradition of wrestling in which
there were numerous other local, regional, and state champions who
were trained in the same way. Having written elsewhere about Gama’s
unique biography, I will restrict myself in this discussion to an analysis
of that class of wrestlers to which Gama belonged, and reflect
briefly on how this class of wrestlers came to embody — through
exercise, diet and training —middle-class ideals regarding masculinity
in modern India In doing this I have drawn heavily on Barkat Ali’s
Pahalwano ki Duniya (1984), a spectacular photo anthology of Indian
wrestling; Ratan Patodi’s Bharatiya Kushti, an excellent journal
devoted to Indian wrestling; and Govardan Das Malhotra’s in depth
research on the history of wrestling and the biographies of numerous
North Indian champions.
Gama was born into a family of famous wrestlers from the
Punjab in northwestern India His father, Aziz Baksh, himself a court
wrestler, started taking Gama to the gymnasium of Rajah Bhawani
Singh of Datiya from an early age. However, when Gama was only
six years old, his father suddenly died. In recognition of Aziz Baksh’s
status as a court wrestler, Barkat Ali reports that all of the gymnasiums
in the Datiya were closed for a week and a half, and the court
itself was shut down for a few days. For some time Gama was taken
care of by his maternal grandfather, Nun Pahalwan, who continued
to take him to the gymnasium. Unfortunately, his grandfather also
died leaving Gama in the care of his eldest maternal uncle, Ida Pahalwan,
who vowed that he would see to it that Gama became the champion
wrestler his father had wanted him to be. Ida Pahalwan devoted
himself to looking after Gama. Intent on impressing upon him the
desire to be a great wrestler, he constantly pointed out to the young
boy that this is what his father wanted above all else. As Barkat Ali
makes clear in his short biography of Gama, Aziz Baksh’s death left
a deep impression on his young son. Gama was, in fact, not told of
his father’s death for almost a year, during which time he is said to
have gone searching for him through the neighborhood lanes where
he and his extended family lived, following the routes he had travelled
while being carried on his father’s shoulders in hopes of meeting
him along the way or finding him at a friend or relative’s house.
Being told that his father wanted him to become the world’s greatest
wrestler, and that “he could keep his father alive through disciplined
training,” gave Gama a deeply rooted, driving ambition to be the
best.’
Gama’s first great accomplishment came at a national exercise
competition held by the Rajah of Jodhpur, Jaswant Singh, around
1888. Although only ten years old, Gama persuaded another maternal
uncle, Buta Pahalwan, to take him along, and then managed to
convince his skeptical uncle to introduce him to the Rajah so as to get
permission to compete. After hearing that Gama was the son of the
great Aziz Baksh, permission was granted.

The main contest in the competition was to see who could
do the most bethaks (deep knee-bends), one of the most common
exercises in a wrestler’s regimen. Indian wrestlers regularly do
hundreds if not thousands every day, and even at ten years old Gama’s
daily routine included five hundred. Over four hundred wrestlers
from around the country had gathered in Jodhpur for the contest, and
at the Rajah’s signal the competition began. As wrestlers became
tired they left the field until only one hundred or so remained. As
more and more retired, all eyes turned on Gama, until, after a number
of hours had passed, only fifteen wrestlers were left exercising.
At this point Jaswant Singh ended the contest saying that the ten year
old boy was clearly the winner in such a field of stalwart national
champions. Later, upon being asked how many (bethaks) he had
done, Gama replied that he could not remember, but probably several
thousand. In any event he was bed-ridden for a week.
Starting at the age of ten, Gama’s daily exercise routine
included not only five hundred bethaks, but five hundred dands
(jack-knifing push-ups) as well. Most importantly, according to Barkat
Ali, Gama regularly engaged in the hard exercise of pit digging, wherein
the hardpacked earth of the wrestling arena is dug up and “turned”
with a heavy hoe-like implement called a pharsa which can weigh
as much as twenty or thirty kilograms. Digging is done between
spread legs with back and legs bent. Starting in one comer of the pit,
wrestlers dig from side to side in curving arcs moving as quickly as
possible. Often the pit is dug twice or three times, starting each
time from a different comer. In addition to building stamina, this exercise develops hand and wrist strength in particular, but also
lower back, buttock and thigh muscles. While still ten years old,
Gama’s special diet consisted of milk, almonds and fruit, three primary
ingredients in any wrestler’s diet. He did not start eating meat,
butter, and clarified butter until he turned fifteen, around 1893.
After his success at the exercise competition, Gama’s fame
spread throughout the princely states of India, but he did not start
wrestling competitively until he was fifteen years old. Very quickly,
however, he proved to be virtually unbeatable and formally became
a wrestler in the court of Datiya soon thereafter. At this time Gama’s
exercise routine increased significantly. He is said to have regularly
done three thousand bethaks and fifteen hundred dands and run
one mile every day with a 120 pound stone ring around his neck.2
With this increase in workload, Gama’s paternal uncle Mohammed
Baksh, along with Ida Pahalwan and his guru Madho Singh, added
meat and butter to Gama’s diet. He was also given yakhni, the boiled
down gelatinous extract of bones, joints, and tendons which is regarded
by many Muslim wrestlers as being a source of great strength, and
being particularly good for the development of knees, ankles, and
other joints. According to Rajindarsingh Munna, at this time Gama
was consuming twenty liters of milk, half a liter of clarified butter,
3/4 of a kilogram of butter, and four kilograms of fruit per day.3
In 1904 Gama won a number of spectacular bouts held in
a tournament organized by the Maharajah of Rewa, and subsequently
accepted a position in the Rewa court. Then in 1906 Gama wrestled
in a tournament organized by Maharajah Pratap Singh of Orcha, and
upon winning the title bout accepted a silver mace, a five hundred
rupee award, and a permanent position in the royal court. Out of
Orcha, Gama wrestled with the champions of Indor, Amritsar and
Lahore, finally meeting with the famous Rahim Sultaniwalla in Datiya
sometime in 1907. In this tournament, Gama and Rahim Sultaniwalla
wrestled for twenty minutes in what is described by Ratan Patodi
as a perfect match in which there was a counter grip for every grip
applied, a counter move for every move made and a counter twist for
every twist employed.4 With no one being clearly the winner, the
contest was declared a draw. Rahim and Gama met twice again prior
to 1910, once in Lahore where they wrestled for three hours, and once
in Indor where the contest lasted for two hours and twenty minutes,
but again no clear winner was determined in either bout.
In 1908, two years before he went to London to compete
for the world championship belt, Gama’s regimen was increased to
five thousand bethaks and three thousand dands. Every morning he
would also work out by wrestling with forty compatriot wrestlers in
the royal court. Added to this, he began weight-lifting with a one
hundred pound grind stone and a santola (wooden bar-bell made
from a tree trunk). At this time Barkat Ali claims that he regularly
consumed either six chickens or the extract of five kilograms of mutton
mixed with a quarter pound of clarified butter, ten liters of milk
along with half a liter more of clarified butter, about 3/4 of a kilogram
of crushed almond paste made into a tonic drink, along with fruit juice
and other things to promote good digestion.5
As one of India’s preeminent wrestlers, Gama was chosen
by R. B. Benjamin, a physical culture enthusiast, to go to London
in 1910 along with Gamu Jalandariwalla, Ahmed Baksh and
Imam Baksh, to compete in the John Bull Society world wrestling
championship. Coming at a time of increasing national consciousness
and pride in Indian identity, the trip to London was sponsored
by Sharat Kumar Mishra, a Bengali millionaire, and was billed as an
opportunity for India to demonstrate its strength on the world stage.
The four wrestlers and their entourage travelled through
Europe to London to discover, according to Barkat Ali, that only
heavyweight wrestlers were allowed to compete. Being only 5 feet
8 inches tall and 14 stone (196 pounds), Gama was disqualified.
Whether or not this is true in fact since Robert W. Smith expresses
some doubt on the question, it is significant that the whole issue of
weight, height, and size classification proved to be a critical issue for
the young Gama, who could not understand the rationale for measuring
the skill and subtle power of a tine art in terms of gross mass.6
Aside from being simply disappointed, Gama was thoroughly
confused. Although his own regimen would appear to have
as a final goal simply the production of a massive, powerful physique,
this physique — neck girth, chest expanse, and the dimensions of
thigh and upper arm —was, to his way of thinking, simply the empirical
measure of relative stature and had very little to do with skill. In
fact, in Gama’s view strength also had less to do with size than one
might expect. His phenomenal diet and regimen of exercise was
meant to develop a kind of pervasive subtle energy rather than just
the kinetic power of particular muscle groups.

In any event, as the story goes, in order to demonstrate in
England the Indian’s natural talent, his manager arranged with a local
theater for Gama to stage a dramatic challenge, promising pounds
sterling to any wrestler who could throw him down. On the first day
three wrestlers were dispatched by him in short order, and on the second
day he is said to have defeated ten local English champions
one after the other. According to Ratan Patodi, another of the world
champion’s biographers, Gama also distinguished himself by defeating
the American champion, Roller, in three minutes, and by throwing
down all thirty of the Japanese heavyweight wrestlers in one hour.7
All of the popular Indian press accounts claim that it was on the basis
of these feats that Gama was able to circumvent the tournament
rules and persuade the officials to allow him to fight with the reigning
world champion, Stanlislaus Zbyszko.
Although lighter and shorter than Zbyszko, by about fifty
pounds and several inches, accounts of the match held on 10 December
1910, clearly prove Gama’s superiority. Apparently taken aback
by Gama’s speed, strength, and stamina, Zbyszko quickly assumed a prone position on the mat. Since Gama’s forte was foot work and
standing take-downs, he was unable to flip his heavier, European
opponent onto his back and finally the match was called at dusk. The
match was scheduled to resume the following day, but Zbyszko did
not show up. Gama was declared world champion by default.
Although I have written elsewhere in some detail on the
nationalistic implications of Gama’s triumph in relation to colonial
power, it is important to note also the extent to which Gama came
to represent indigenous masculine ideals.8 In the eyes of the growing
Indian middle-class who were, by 1910, subscribing to a plethora
of new newspapers which published news of the world champion,
Gama was a national hero. Not only had he defeated the greatest
wrestlers of Europe and America, but he had done so, more significantly,
in a distinctly Indian way. In both Indian and European publications
what was regarded as noteworthy about Gama was the
nature of his training regimen: the bethaks and dands in particular,
but also his diet and simply the amount of time he spent wrestling,
digging the pit, running, and exercising every day. For many middle-
class Indian men, themselves working in sedentary office jobs,
and bearing the psychological burden of Eurocentric prejudice regarding
their so-called effete proclivities, Gama proved, without a doubt,
that strength clearly had an Indian form. Needless to say, the mass
of middle-class men who idealized Gama did not immediately enter
gymnasiums and start vigorously exercising. But what did happen,
I think, is that many of them began to appreciate the virtues of Indian
physical culture and stopped measuring themselves strictly against
a Victorian, colonial standard of prowess.
Gama returned to India as a national hero and was recruited
into the court of the Maharajah of Patiala, a princely state in the
Punjab region of northwest India. He received 250 rupees per month
as a stipend. Although acclaimed as the world champion, Gama
had never really become the national champion by defeating the only
other legitimate contender, his old rival Rahim Sultaniwalla. In what
is probably one of the most famous bouts in the annals of Indian
wrestling, Gama met with Rahim in the north Indian city of Allahabad
in 1912. Ratan Patodi gives the following account of the
contest. Rahim had put out a challenge to meet with any wrestler in
the country at Allahabad, and Gama immediately accepted. More
than fifty thousand spectators from around the country and overseas
had gathered to watch. and many kings and princes from throughout
the country had come to witness the rematch. When Rahim
entered the pit, his body anointed with red ochre paste, shouting out
the name of god, he looked like a rogue elephant on a rampage.
When Gama quietly entered the arena wearing a pair of red wrestling
briefs the audience was simply awe struck:
As soon as the match started both wrestlers attacked one
another, looking to settle the contest quickly. As they grappled,
the ochre paste from Rahim’s body spread onto Gama
and soon they were both besmeared with red. As the match
progressed, Gama became more and more aggressive, but
with perceptive skill Rahim was able to counter every move
he made. This match proved that there is a counter move,
grip and twist for every move applied, even when that move
is applied by a world champion. Once Gama lifted Rahim
off the ground, but he managed to escape and rallied with
the applause of the assembled crowd. Then again Gama
lifted Rahim off the ground, but he scissored his legs, flipped
over, and landed in front of the world champion still raging
like a wild elephant.
Finally, however, the older man began to tire in the
face of such a ferocious onslaught. Responding to this,
Gama attacked even more aggressively applying one move
after another with lightning speed. Rahim defended himself
against Gama’s every effort until finally he was exhausted.
Rather than be pinned, he bowed to defeat and left
the pit.
It is simply ill fate that Rahim, who fought so well with
Gama three times, never achieved the same recognition as
the world champion. Although an acclaimed master of the
art, Rahim is now remembered as one of those unfortunate
wrestlers who never quite made it. But he had no regrets
about leaving the pit in Allahabad, for he knew that move
for move he had matched himself with the very best.9
In 1928, when he was fifty years old, Gama met Zbyszko
again, this time in Patiala at Maharajah Bhupindar Singh’s behest.
Set for January 28, the match-up was an epic event, coming as it
did at a time of strident Indian nationalism. Zbyszko’s arrival in Bombay
was something of a media event. Among other things the Indian
papers published the Polish champion’s massive [Ed. note: and
exaggerated] credentials — three hundred pounds, fifty-eight inch
chest, thirty-five inch waist, twenty-three inch calves and a somewhat
unbelievable twenty-three inch neck.10
While in Bombay, Zbyszko apparently put on a demonstration
of his physical prowess by lifting, bending and breaking steel
bars and chains, claiming, for dramatic effect no doubt, that he would
do much the same to Gama.11
In Patiala the Maharajah had gone to great lengths to prepare
a stadium to accommodate fifty thousand spectators. Ratan Patodi
reports, probably with some exaggeration, that on the appointed
day over one hundred thousand people had arrived to watch the
epic rematch. Hardly had the match gotten under way, however,
when Gama let go of Zbyszko’s neck, grabbed his left ankle, pulled
his leg into the air, and applied his favorite move, an anti by kicking
the former world champion’s right leg out from under him and sending
him, flat on his back, down in the dirt in only forty-two seconds.
As Patodi explains, “Gama then jumped forward, pressed his
own chest down on Zbyszko’s, and thus showed him the sky.”12
Needless to say —but as I have nevertheless discussed at some length elsewhere — one long pray-
Gama’s triumph was seen er. Throughas
India’s triumph, a point out he remainbrought
home by the fact ed absolutely
that the Viceroy himself absorbed in the
is said to have come task at hand.
down out of the royal Unlike most
pavilion to congratulate wrestlers, who
the unseated world cham- jump forward
pion.13 In India at least and back only
— for I have not seen it about a hand’s
printed elsewhere —the width while
scope of Gama’s title was doing bethaks,
upgraded from that of Gama would
“world champion” to jump back and
“champion of where forth as much
ever.” Gama kept as a foot. He
wrestling after his victo- also did his
ry in 1923 until he effec- bethaks much
tively retired sometime in faster than
the early 1940s bequeath- most wrestlers,
ing his title to his younger in sets of one
brother, Imam Baksh. hundred at a
Even at the age of fifty, time.1 6
however, Gama was still Clearly Gama’s epic
doing 6000 bethaks and heroism is exceptional,
4000 dands every day, and despite whatever
wrestling with eighty hyperbole may now be
compatriots in the royal employed to describe his
gymnasium, and eating great achievements, as a
essentially the same diet powerful athlete he was
as when he was twenty.14 certainly not alone. He
Writing exclusively was simply the best of a
on Gama’s training pro- THIS EARLY PHOTOGRAPH, FROM THE PERSONAL COLLECTION OF GEORGE HACKENSCHMIDT, large number of hard
gram, Dr. S. P. Atreya is SHOWS GAMA AND STANISLAUS ZYBYSKO SHAKING HANDS PRIOR TO THEIR HISTORIC BOUT working lower class
somewhat more reserved IN INDIA. wrestlers who — proin
his estimation of the jected onto the national
world champion’s regimen, claiming, simply, that there was no way and international stage by wealthy merchants, kings and princes —
of knowing how many bethaks or dands were done on a daily basis came to embody certain national ideals about Indian character. In
by Gama since no one ever saw him start a routine or stayed long order to contextualize Gama’s achievements I would like to work
enough in the gymnasium to watch him finish.15 In any event, Atreya toward a conclusion of this discussion by examining the careers of
points out that regardless of how many he did, what is most signifi- a few of his compatriots: the “real men” of the soil in whose image
cant is that he always did them properly. the middle-class was trying to reshape itself.
His attention was fully focused inward on the regimen One might take, for example, Sadik Pahalwan, a disciple
to such an extent that he literally saw nothing but what he of the great Jwala Ustad from Lucknow in central Uttar Pradesh. Born
was doing. As a rule, he recited the name of god with every in 1894, the son of Sultan Pahalwan, Sadik began training at age five.
breath taken during his set of bethaks, twice for every rep- At the age of twenty he began to make a name for himself as a wrestler
etition, and so you could say that his exercise routine was and soon came to the attention of Professor Ram Murti Naidu, the nationalist advocate of indigenous physical culture who took Sadik,
along with a number of other wrestlers, on a demonstration tour of
Ceylon and Burma. For a number of years Sadik was in the central
Uttar Pradesh region of Audh, and from this venue he wrestled against
and defeated all of the regional champions before he was thirty years
old.
Govardan Das Malhotra reports that in his prime Sadik’s
regimen included fifteen hundred dands, three thousand bethaks,
wrestling practice with twenty compatriots, three miles of running,
three hundred lifting repetitions of a heavy santola, digging the
wrestling pit twice with a heavy pharsa, and a number of dhekulis
(headstand twists in the wrestling pit which develop neck strength
and agility).17 As in the case of Gama, however, what is noteworthy
is the particular way in which Sadik becomes, in his middle-class
biographer’s eye, a heroic representation of Indian male identity. For
example, Malhotra paints the following picture.
Following the adage that truth is greater than prayer,
Sadik overcame all of life’s difficulties with laughter and
joy, never letting even the shadow of pride and conceit
fall anywhere near him. He lived the life of a sage, and
always putting others before himself, spent his life in the
service of the gymnasium . . .
He made no distinction between Hindu and Muslim
and loved everyone equally. He was a man of great character:
honest, forthright and wise
Whenever the 240 pound Sadik would go out in public
on his bicycle, wearing a dhoti (loin cloth) and kurta
(long split-sided north Indian shirt) with a light-weight scarf
over his shoulder, fancy hat on his head, umbrella under
his arm, and, in the hot weather, a fan in his hand, while
chewing on his favorite pan (a lime paste, betel nut and
betel leaf concoction), a veritable parade of people would
come out of their homes and shops in the Lucknow bazaar
to watch him go by.18
By way of prosaic rhetoric one clearly gets the impression here of a
middle-class vision of fitness and fashion as well as clearly articulated
correlations between ideal character, discipline, and physical
stature.
Born in 1895, Ram Sevak, a native of Banaras in eastern
Uttar Pradesh, became one of the best wrestlers in the country by the
time he was 20 years old. Defeating many of the local champions
in north central India, he left school after 10th grade in order to devote
himself to training. Soon thereafter he came to the attention of the
Rajah of Nagpur. However Ram Sevak’s elder brother kept him from
joining the royal court, finding, instead, local sponsors in the city.
Most significantly, Ram Sevak came to the attention of Mahamna
Madan Mohan Malviya, the founder of Banaras Hindu University,
nationalist advocate of education reform, President of the Hindu
Mahasabha and, along with Ram Murti Naidu and Manikrao, a vocal
advocate of indigenous physical culture. Malviya persuaded Ram
Sevak to establish a gymnasium on the grounds of Banaras Hindu
University — named Shivaji Hall after the great Hindu military
leader of the seventeenth century — and train students in the art of
Indian wrestling. Through Malviya, Ram Sevak also came to the
attention of one of India’s industrial giants, Ghaneshyamdas Birla, a
nationalist advocate who regarded the young wrestler’s work very
highly. After turning forty, Ram Sevak devoted himself to the task
of training students at BHU, but also established a gymnasium of his
own in the city where he encouraged peasant youth from the nearby
district area to come and train.19
Like Sadik, Gama, and countless others, Ram Sevak’s regimen
is regarded as emblematic of his good character, and is recounted
by his biographer as a kind of testimonial of stature.
Everyday he did two thousand dands, two thousand
bethaks, 1/2 an hour of headstand twists and flips, and conducted
wrestling practice with between twenty and twentyeight
compatriots . . . He drank a quarter litre of clarified
butter, three liters of milk and ate half a kilogram of almonds
every day along with a purely vegetarian diet. Never once
did he touch alcohol, tobacco or cigarettes, nor have any
of his disciples.20

Sukhdev, whose name means divine bliss, was born into
a peasant family of dairy farmers in a village near the city of Azamghar
in eastern Uttar Pradesh not far from Banaras in 1915.
Sukhdev’s elder brother, himself a well known local champion,
wanted to turn his younger brother into a national champion, and
therefore started taking him to the village gymnasium from a young
age. Mulli Ustad, the local village master, lavished attention on
Sukhdev until the young wrestler left to join a city gymnasium at the
age of twelve. Soon he became the best wrestler in Azamghar and
quickly began beating all the local champions of Uttar Pradesh. He
also competed successfully in tournaments held in Bombay and Calcutta,
and defeated Gama’s nephew, Aslam Pahalwan, in a short and
definitive three minute match. After noting, in characteristic detail,
the components of Sukhdev’s daily regimen —five thousand bethaks,
three thousand dands, two liters of milk, a kilogram of almonds and
half a liter of clarified butter — Malhotra points out that he was not
simply a powerful man possessing great skill, but also very religious.
Not only was he a vegetarian, but as a young boy he vowed never
to eat onions, turmeric or garlic. This is taken by Malhotra to be exemplary
behavior, and he goes on to say that even though Sukhdev was
unable to pursue an education on account of his devotion to the art of
wrestling, he lived the life of a saint on account of his devotion to
Lord Siva and Lord Hanuman.21
In other words, Sukhdev exemplified all that was good in
Indian character despite the fact—or one might say, because of the fact—that he was a poor illiterate peasant. The significance of this
comes out in Malhotra’s eulogy: “Upon his death at the age of 69 this
man, with the chest of a lion, a voice of great power, and raised up
by his devotion to the nation, stands alone as a great example to the
youth of today.”22
Any number of other examples could be cited of wrestlers
much like Sukhdev. In conclusion, however, one may consider
what Gama’s biographers have to say about his exemplary national
character.
In all of the accounts of Gama’s life which I have read,
the world champion is characterized as being not only strong and skilful,
but also supremely honest, hard working, pious and forthright.
In many ways — and despite the fact that he was, in fact, probably
a man of good character — Gama was made to embody not only the
virtues which middle-class men nostalgically associated with their
own peasant ancestry, but also a romantically anachronistic aesthetic
of masculine self-representation. Describing what Gama looked
like on parade after beating Zbyszko in 1928, Brijbhushan Dube points
out that he refused to ride in the Maharajah’s car, preferring to simply
walk. Wearing a black embroidered tahmad (long coat), a very
fine, soft light-weight kurta (long shirt) on his upper body, a light
green turban set off at an angle on his head, and over his shoulder the
dushala (shawl) given to him by the Maharajah, Gama, with Imam
Baksh at his side and other royal wrestlers behind, walked at the front
of a parade of fans which stretched back for miles. On the one hand
this parade was historic, while on the other it was simply an indication
of the world champion’s garima (dignity), saralta (simplicity),
and sadaai (pure faultlesness).23
To illustrate the depth of these virtues in Gama’s national
character, Dube gives a number of examples. Once, sometime in the
mid 1920s, during the height of nationalist action, Gama was put in
prison with his younger brother for reasons which are unclear, but
probably on suspicion of anti-government activities. After a few
days’ incarceration, the warden tried to persuade Gama to divulge
the names of his enemies in exchange for his own freedom. At this
Gama is reported to have said, “I have no enemies in this world. If
you think that I would bring down someone else in order to save
myself, you are wrong. I am your prisoner, do with me what you
will.” 24 What we learn from this, Dube points out, is that Gama was
a perfect, selfless gentleman.
The image of an extremely powerful, well dressed, perfectly
selfless gentleman, committed to hard work and simple, traditional,
rural values, evoked in many urban middle-class men, an aesthetic
ideal for modern Indian masculinity. In the eyes of men like Shanti
Prakash Atreya, himself a disciple of Ram Sevak, as well as other
men such as Barkat Ali, Govradan Das Malhotra, Brijbhushan Dube,
and Ratan Patodi, who have all written extensively about the history
of wrestling, Gama and others like him were in a class by themselves,
a fact which enabled middle-class men, nervous about the direction
of political, economic, and cultural change, to appropriate the downto-
earth personae of two very strong, poor illiterate Muslim men, a
peasant dairy farmer, and a pious Banarsi Hindu, among others, for
the purposes of their own heroic nationalism.